Leadership often demands both steady progress and bold reimagination. In this episode, Katie explores how healthcare leaders can manage overwhelm, challenge their thinking, and hold contradictions, from small steps to big leaps, all part of the path to meaningful growth.

In the whirlwind of healthcare leadership, it can feel impossible to pause long enough to see the bigger picture. That’s where tools like SWOT and SOAR come in. In this episode of Katie’s Leadership Lounge, I’m looking at this classic framework, uncovering history, and showing how they can help leaders challenge assumptions, uncover blind spots, and move from firefighting to focused action.

Leading in healthcare isn’t a sprint with a clear endpoint, and there are moments when you can’t do everything and be everywhere, so you get to choose. In this reflective episode, I’m sharing what pausing, noticing, and being truly present can do for your leadership. Then we have practical tips on how you can create moments to ground and refocus yourself, all of which you can use in less than 30 seconds. This episode is your reminder that presence is a leadership strength.

Yes, an organisation and a boss have a responsibility to set you up for success. It might be training, definitely an orientation plan, maybe a mentor, and a reasonable, if not manageable, workload (I’ll pause while you all laugh).

You too have a role to play in setting yourself up for success. Getting the room ready for decorating and the walls ready for painting so the colour goes on well and evenly, so I can sit back and bask in the joy of a newly decorated and gorgeous room, is setting myself up for success.

It’s the same when you’re a leader.

This week, we’re into those foundations.

Starting with one idea, I found myself going in circles. With so much bad stuff going on in the world, who am I to talk about anything? Not to mention my ideas for sustainable leadership in healthcare. So I started with that, and came full circle, from Bittersweet to the Stockdale Paradox and a whole lot more in between.

We’re in the UK, and you’ll tell from the sound that my microphone isn’t. It’s been a wild ride and I’ve had many low points and bumpy stretches. I’m sure there are more to come. What then have been the practices that have stood the test and really helped me keep going?

This episode is for anyone who has ever left a team, a job, or a role, or supported someone else through it. I share what I’ve learned (and am still learning) about letting go, closure, grief, uncertainty, and grace.

With only two weeks till my big move, the period of Matarki and Midwinter has created a space of pause for me. So this week, I’m sharing a calm, reflective episode as this is a natural moment to reflect and take stock.

In this episode, we look at the difference between routines and habits and why that distinction matters for healthcare leaders under pressure. Drawing on practical examples and experience (including how a one-minute action can spark major change), I’m talking about how habits form the backbone of leadership identity. You'll hear how even in chaos, small, consistent actions build the leader you want to become.